


Seven Years Bad Luck

by hiddenlongings



Series: Reflections [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 14:51:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddenlongings/pseuds/hiddenlongings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.<br/>Ernest Holmes</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Years Bad Luck

Clint isn’t used to affection in any of its forms. The last time he recalled receiving anything like it he was still toddling around in diapers. He kneels at Phil Coulson’s feet for several moments before he pulls away from the warm darkness that Phil’s shoulder had offered him. 

 

He’d broken down like a sniveling child and he has to hold back a shudder at the unexpected flush of something that runs through him. The heat that runs through him isn’t lust. Well it isn’t just lust at any rate. That warm dry kiss was the first sign of the changes to come. The next sign comes when Phil lifts his hand and brings it steadily up to his face.

 

In the past if a hand came towards his face it had always been to hit or been a medical professional. So when Phil leans in close and raises that hand towards him Clint shies away before he thinks about it. 

 

He’s seen this kind of ‘affection’ before. It’s the lie of promised affection that ends in a sharp slap to a cheek. A reminder, that Barney, Trickshot, and his father had always been willing to provide. Snivelling cowardly men didn’t deserve affection and anyone who expected it deserved to get knocked down a peg or two. 

 

Phil leans back into the support of his wheelchair and his lips tighten. 

 

Clint bites his lip sharply and has to look away from the older man in front of him. He’s already disappointed Coulson he can tell. He can feel the burn of intense blue eyes as they look at him. 

 

Although he can’t tell what the other man sees, he can take a guess. Blotchy red cheeks. His own blue eyes standing out in stunning contrast to the intense red of his sclera. Disgusting runny nose. Phil’s hand comes up again, and this time Clint holds steady although he still can’t hold back his flinch completely.

 

The warm dry palm and sensitive fingertips of his handler’s hand sweeps gently around until he has grasped the hinge of his jaw very very lightly. His thumb comes up and sweeps away the damp tracks that Clint’s tears have left on his cheek. He then carefully retracts his right hand before doing the same thing to Clint’s other cheek with his left. This time he doesn’t move his hand and they just sit in silence as the van continues inexorably towards the Avenger’s Tower.

 

After several long moments Clint feels something give way in his chest and he hesitantly nuzzles closer to Phil’s large hand and lets himself release some of the tension that had thrummed through him when he had expected a blow. 

 

Phil’s hum of pleasure at Clint’s trust was a low rumble that shivered across the archer’s skin and when Phil relinquished his jaw and started to pet through the soft spikes that covered Clint’s head and left him nearly boneless as he sprawled across the older man’s lap.

 

The van slowed to a stop a short eternity later. Clint was a purring near comatose puddle and he had gathered enough courage to tilt his head this way and that so Phil wouldn’t have to stretch an uncomfortable distance to try and reach a portion of his head. 

 

When the van’s door ripped open with a loud crash Clint went from nearly asleep to launching himself towards the violent intrusion before he could fully regain his senses. Clint wrenched himself from the flashing fog of startled fear and found himself crouched low over one Tony Stark. His hands were neatly wrapped around the slender neck and his teeth were bared.

 

Tony had both of his hands pulled up to his shoulders in a gesture of surrender and his eyes rolled wide with startlement.

 

“Whoa there Legolas. It’s just me.”

 

Clint pried his hands free of Stark’s throat and he regained his feet with an embarrassed cough. 

 

“Of course it is Mr. Stark. After all what kind of day would it be if you weren’t leaving a path of destruction and embarrassment.”

 

The Sahara couldn’t have been as dry as Phil’s voice as he let the stony faced driver help him out of the van.

 

“I...Uh...Sorry about that Stark.” Clint rubbed a sheepish hand across the back of his neck in a futile attempt to slow the blush that creeping up his face. 

“You...uh...startled me.”

 

“No fucking shit.” Starks voice was almost as dry as Phil’s as he regained his feet and brushed off his backside. 

 

“Scouts honor.” He continued. “I’ll never do that again.”

 

Clint snorts hard.

 

“As if you were ever a boyscout.”

 

“Hey I’ve scouted many a boy in my day so technically…”

 

“I am one hundred percent positive.” Phil said as he rolled past both men. “That I do not want you to finish that sentence. In fact I am going to do my best to forget that you were ever here to begin with.”

 

“Aww but Agent.”

 

“If you’re that bored Mr. Stark perhaps you could work on the paperwork that I know Director Fury has been plying you with.”

 

“I will do exactly jack shit to help that asshole out in any way.” Tony’s voice hardened and all of the humor seemed to drain out of him in an instant.

 

“Mr. Stark…”

“Save it Agent. I bet you are just as pissed as the rest of us are that he would pull that fucking stunt. Declaring you dead might have forced us to work together but it also removed any small amount of loyalty I might have felt towards SHIELD as a whole.”

 

Phil’s face tightened in something that looked like the second cousin of confusion.

 

“You have to know every single one of us, Barton included I just bet, is willing to do just about anything to make sure that you’re back on your feet and in the field before too much longer. Or hell just backing us up at all.” Tony shifted uneasily on his feet and looked off into the middle distance as though he could hide his feelings behind such a flimsy facade. 

 

“We need your backup and support and if SHIELD won’t have you because of the Council’s ‘stupid ass’ decisions and Fury’s manipulative asshattery then we’ll gladly pay you twice as much as you’re making now and probably half of what you’re actually worth.”

 

Clint had to hide a smile as the small man in front of them, as puffed up and peacocky as he usually was, paid his handler compliment after compliment.

 

“Are you implying that the Avengers are going to remove themselves from SHIELD?”

 

“Blatantly stating it actually.” 

 

Roger’s voice rumbled out from the stairwell and Clint and Phil turned to look as Captain America strolled up to them nonchalantly. Clint could still almost see the little exclamation points that surrounded Phil’s head whenever the man appeared in front of them unexpectedly.

 

“Director Fury…”

 

“Lied to us and broke our trust.”

 

Clint felt an iron fist start to clench around his chest as he thought about those moments. After Loki, after the recalibration, after the shawarma when Coulson’s death had been revealed to him he had felt his world go darker than it ever had before. Barney and Trickshot’s betrayal had been a turning point in his life, as had the bullet that Phil had shot through his leg. Coulson’s death, fake though it turned out to be, was another.

 

“You should leave sir.” Phil turned to meet Clint’s eyes as the younger man spoke up. “I know you and Fury have history but he’s been stepping over the line more and more lately.”

 

“Oh come on Katniss you’re invited to this party too.” Stark snarked.

 

“I have a binding contract with SHIELD.” Clint said quietly. “Due to some poor decision making in my youth I was given the option of SHIELD or life in prison with the possibility of the death sentence.”

 

Coulson’s eyes swept to him and the usually stoic man blushed ever so faintly.

 

Clint’s eyes lit up faintly with a trace of his usual humor as he caught the embarrassment that had briefly marred Coulson’s face.

 

“That is unless of course the man who brought me in, bitching and bleeding profusely, lied to me about the conditions.”

 

“Lying.” Coulson said quietly. “Is such an ugly word.”

 

“What would you call it then?”

 

“Careful restructuring of the truth. After all those men you killed weren’t exactly well loved by law enforcement.”

 

“Ah so if perhaps the dates were fudged a tad then technically I was working for SHIELD at the time.”

 

“Technically.”

 

“So where’s my back pay sir?”

 

“Okay. Okay. Okay. Enough with the flirting.” Tony huffed as he turned and started walking away. “Decision made and all that. Pepper will send you the necessary paperwork.”

 

Steve grinned at both of them for a moment.

 

“Glad to know I’ll have people I can trust at my back. Coulson. Barton.” He nodded goodbye before he headed towards the stairwell that would take him to his workout room.

 

The huff of amusement that Coulson let loose after they had left spoke more of shocked pleasure than any sort of humor towards the situation. 

 

“Well that took an unexpected turn.”

 

“Yes sir. I would say so.”

 

“Don’t think this means I’m going to ignore what the doctor had to say Clint.”

 

Clint’s bright smile dimmed and he eyed a nearby stairwell that would put him out of Phil’s grasp and let him tuck himself away from the uncomfortable conversation he was quite sure was heading his way.

 

“Don’t even think about it Barton.”

 

Clint didn’t know how Phil managed it from his wheelchair but the older man quickly herded him into the elevator before he could make his daring escape.

 

Phil leaned forwards and pushed the button that would drop them off at the communal kitchen before he leaned back into his chair with a quiet sigh of discomfort. 

 

“What’d the docs say about you sir?”

 

“Do you think you could call me Phil?”

 

Coulson’s eyes watch him closely as he asks the question and Clint struggles mightily to keep his expression smooth and calm. The kiss they had shared in the van had been chaste and quick for all of its sweetness. The petting had been soothing and calm rather than sexual. He wanted Phil; but he was also afraid of what would happen if the older man took it any further. 

 

Clint knew that everything came at a price and as he remembered food and a bed and Barney limping for days he also knew he’d take what he could from the older man no matter the cost. Clint had thought he knew what Phil would want from him. Calling Phil by his first name was not a part of that. 

 

Clint fought against the way his brow wanted to furrough with confusion before it cleared suddenly as he recognized the evasion for what it was. Coulson just wanted to gain his trust while keeping information he considered private away from him.

 

“Nah, sir. It’s habit at this point.”

 

Phil frowned at him and Clint turned away to study the elevators buttons unsure of his misstep. He had backed off of the unwanted topic and saved the man from any sort of emotional closeness that the evasion might have prompted. 

 

“The doctors say that I’m recovering nicely, though from the amount of prodding and poking that went on I’d say I’m not healing as quickly as they’d like.”

 

“Is that because of the nature of the injury or because of the nature of the weapon?” Clint asked before his brain could catch up with the fact that Coulson had answered his question.

 

“It’s unclear, although I will say that the nature of the weapon is the only reason I survived.”

 

“How’s that?”

 

“The damned thing was hot enough that it cauterized the wound as it went through my shoulder. That kept me from bleeding out, apparently it nicked a couple of pretty important blood vessels but they were burned shut.”

 

Clint frowned and looked away as he fought against a wave of nausea. For an instant he looked at himself in the reflective surface of the elevator. Fear and self-loathing filled him at the sight and he had to clench his eyes shut.

 

He hadn’t been strong enough to fight off Loki’s influence. He hadn’t been good enough and in so many ways Phil’s injury was his fault as much as the god’s. 

 

Warm fingers wove through his own and he whipped his face back around and opened his eyes. He slowly hesitantly knelt when Coulson pulled at him.

 

“JARVIS please stop the elevator for a moment.”

 

“Of course Agent Coulson.”

 

The elevator slowed in its ascent before coming to a smooth stop. Clint studied the entwined fingers in front of him. 

 

“I would really like it if you could call me Phil, Clint. “

 

“I...I don’t understand.”

 

“I know you don’t. What do you see when you look in the mirror Clint?”

 

Clint kept his eyes fixed on their hands and he could feel his mouth tighten in silent refusal.

 

“All right. I’ll start with something a little easier. How many years were you a mercenary between leaving the circus and coming to SHIELD?” 

 

“You know the answer to that.”

 

“Indulge me.”

 

“Seven years.”

 

“Okay. How many innocent people did you kill in that timespan?”

 

Clint’s mouth opened sharply before he shut it with a snap.

 

“I know the answer to that one as well. Zero. Every single person you killed in those times almost certainly deserved worse than what you gave them. Despite seemingly insurmountable odds you became a better man than your father. Than your brother. Than your mentor. All of these men that could have ruined you. You have surpassed all of them. You are better than all of them.”

 

“Sir!”

 

Phil leaned in and kissed Clint again. It started as dry and sweet as their first one had but quickly evolved into a tight clinch that had both men winding their arms around each other.

 

When Phil finally pulled back he was panting heavily and his eyes were lambent.

 

“Whatever you’re thinking about yourself.” Phil continued in a low rasp. “Whatever House of Mirrors distortion that makes you look at yourself like that. You’re wrong.”

 

“Sir…”

 

“Phil!”

 

“...Phil, I couldn’t save you. I killed men for Loki. I...I’m not anything.”

 

“You’re wrong, Clint.”

 

Phil leaned in close and kissed Clint’s cheek lightly before he leaned back into his wheelchair again.

 

“You’re everything.”


End file.
